Finally, my 'main' army gets its own codex! A lot of this is stuff I've posted before, so I'll make sure to point out in red text where the new stuff is.

HistoryThe T.L.A. (Three Letter Acronym) were once a roving band of mercenaries in a distant galaxy. Inspired by the flourishing civilization around them, they decided to claim a few unowned planets for themselves and set up their own enlightened, democratic society, with (as was the custom there) a three-word name that reduced easily to an acronym. For a time their new nation was wildly successful, colonizing many planets and filling their skies with vast orbiting shipyards that churned out some of the best transports and warships in the galaxy. Their fortunes changed when the galaxy was attacked by a mysterious alien menace that swept through the once-mighty Galactic civilization, destroying, looting, and assimilating all who stood in their way. Their foe was too massive to face head on... the only choice was exodus. The T.L.A. converted their orbital shipyards into self-contained colony vessels and escaped the galaxy entirely, shortly before their home worlds, along with all who had elected to remain behind, were overrun.

The colony fleet was hundreds strong when it left the galaxy, but mechanical failures winnowed their numbers to only a dozen as they neared their destination. Worse, the scoutships they launched ahead found that this new galaxy was embroiled in an even greater war -- a struggle for survival against a race of immortal warriors, led by an enigmatic yet terrifying figure -- clad in black and wreathed in flame.

Sorry, I don't have the correct head. You can say it's a shard, if that helps.

This new home promised no safety, only future conflict. But their ships could not sustain them much longer. And so, with no other choice, they prepared to fight...

Current AffairsThe T.L.A. arrived in an unclaimed star system on the border between Scythian and Britannian space, and were immediately challenged by an Immortal battle group. The spinal rail gun on their Mothership eliminated the Immortals' flagship, but the energy signature produced by its destruction attracted spacecraft from several different factions. The T.L.A. assisted the Anti-Immortal forces in clearing the Immortals and their allies from the system, and subsequently sided with the Anti-Immortal factions. Although the T.L.A. leadership had been leaning in favor of the Anti-Immortal faction ever since it learned the details of the Brikwars galaxy's political situation (Had the T.L.A. sided with the Immortals, Warhead would have demanded a tribute of moms, making it even harder for them to repopulate) but they didn't expect to have to make the decision so quickly, or so violently. Now their sudden entrance is about to attract some unwanted attention...

GovernmentThe T.L.A.'s government is a representative democracy with an extremely extensive system of checks and balances and zero voter participation. In practice, this means that politicians cannot get anything done and simply vote themselves back into office at the end of each term. Only a major crisis, such as the Peach incursion, can motivate the politicians to take action or the apathetic citizenry to vote. The presidential election is something of an exception, as citizens consider it to be a kind of competitive sport.

TechnologyThe T.L.A. are master shipbuilders, due to their mastery of fusion technology and ultralight ABS construction material. However, as they arrived from a galaxy much less violent than their new home, their weapons technology lags behind that of many Brikwars factions; in particular, they lack the fine control of energy required to construct laser weaponry, relying primarily on projectiles and missiles. Their missiles are quite effective, however, due to their expertise in shipbuilding.

TacticsThe T.L.A.'s military tactics are designed to make use of their vehicles' speed and agility, while avoiding the limitations imposed by their small population and ammunition-limited weapon technology. Mobility is considered to be of the utmost importance; all T.L.A. infantry are accompanied by transports during open-field battles. The T.L.A. also make use of long-range weapons, primarily missiles, and many of their units are equipped with targeting lasers to increase the accuracy of allied missile strikes.

HeroesI threw out the old T.L.A. heroes -- Irony Man and the Admiral -- as a bit too bland. These guys are new.

Bob the Unbuilder is the T.L.A.'s current president, having won the G.R. 2008 election on the slogan "FUCK YES WE CAN!". Finding himself unable to actually do very much with the highest office in the land, he alleviates boredom by fighting alongside his troops, armed only with his old construction tools.I'm working on getting him an ORANGE TRANSPARENT CHAINSAW, but until then he's going to be dual-wielding power saws.

EDIT: aaaaaand only after I made such a big deal about how careful I was to credit people did I realize that I owe his catchphrase to Zipps, who coined it during The Fight Before Saturnalia. Dammit.

Maverick is the handsome, sexy AND TOTALLY STRAIGHT top pilot in the T.L.A.'s fighter corps. Perfectly at home in the cockpit of any fighter you'd care to name, he views enemy capital ships as targets, friendly capital ships as roving airstrips, and his fellow pilots with a mixture of contempt and faint arousal. He ran in the G.R. 2008 presidential election under the slogan "He's a Maverick" and lost; since then he's become somewhat obsessed with the idea of dapper gentlemen in the military despite being TOTALLY STRAIGHT. Most people think he's against it, though sometimes it's hard to be sure.

TroopsThanks to its extremely low population, the T.L.A. has a very limited number of infantry at its disposal. To mitigate this, its scientists have designed equipment to maximize each soldier's combat potential on the battlefield. T.L.A. soldiers are outfitted with jetpacks that allow them to move swiftly in and out of cover and attack from unexpected directions, and armed with a rail rifle with underslung shotgun, allowing them to either make devastating attacks against individual targets or take down large numbers of enemies. If you think these guys are overpowered, keep in mind that this picture shows literally ALL of them. As the T.L.A.'s population and infantry corps grow, these guys will become elite commandos, supporting a more conventional infantry force.

MechaThe Bipedal Attack Droid/Artificial Squad System (B.A.D.A.S.S.) consists of a group of three humanoid robots, armed with a variety of weapons and equipped with a high-bandwidth data link allowing them to act in concert. Yes, these are Soren's Conscript frames, but I was making them before it was cool. [/hipster glasses]

Left to right: minigun droid (anti-infantry), railgun droid (anti-vehicle), and recon droid (armed with a plasma cannon which is an OK compromise, and equipped with a targeting laser). BADASS units can be deployed deep behind enemy lines on months-long raiding missions where live troops would likely not return.

The T.L.A. discovered that when left to their own devices, a small percentage of BADASS units would go 'rogue' and either abandon the battlefront or start firing indiscriminately. The T.L.A. dug into ancient hardsuit designs to produce the M.E.T.A.L. (Manned Evolved Tactical Assault Landframe) Hardsuit, a highly compact and effective unit that can both function as a human-driven commander for BADASS units and do some serious damage in its own right with an autocannon and grenade launcher.

It lacks the speed over ground of BADASS units, but is equipped with jump jets to compensate.

Yes, it does fit a minifig. Poorly.

The B.A.D. (BADASS Aerial Deployer) is a robotic VTOL running software similar to the BADASS robots. Armed with two miniguns and a Gauss cannon, it is often deployed to provide air support to BADASS and METAL units.

You may be wondering why it's in the mecha section...

This image will most likely enlighten you.

Ground VehiclesYou've seen this transport before, but it's gone through a major redesign -- only the basic outline remains the same. The Speedy Hovering Infantry Transport was designed as a cheap, effective troop transport vehicle. They are rarely used, simply because of the low number of troops the T.L.A. can field, but plans are in place to ramp up production once demand increases. It hovers above the ground on a magnetically contained cushion of ionized air, and is propelled at high speed by two massive turbine engines. The S.H.I.T. is armed with a laser cannon -- the recoil from an autocannon or gauss gun would cause a hover vehicle to slide sideways while firing.

The T.L.A. kind of suck at lasers. There's also a pod containing 5 MKI rockets, which can be volley-launched against enemy infantry.

The T.L.A. S.P.L.A.T. (Speedy PLasma Assault Tank) is the main battle tank of the T.L.A. land forces. Armed with a massive plasma turret and four fixed-forward Gauss cannons, it is designed to quickly outflank and destroy enemy armor and infantry holed up in bunkers or other strongpoints.

I love how it looks but the structure is pretty shabby -- this is a rather old build. I'll see if there's something I can do to tighten it up.

I don't know why all my mecha units wound up with badass acronyms while my ground vehicles wound up with pathetic-sounding ones. That's just the way it turned out.

Air Vehicles

In the space between galaxies, the T.L.A. colony ships met a starship containing a race of rodent-like aliens. Although the two were unable to dock with one another due to the high velocity difference, they bartered with information about their respective technologies and points of origin. One of the pieces of information the T.L.A. bought was the blueprints for a cheap, light, and extremely adaptable atmospheric aircraft chassis known as the Hr-frame. The Hr-36 is the T.L.A.'s first mass-produced variant on the Hr-frame. An extremely high-speed transport capable of deploying jump troops deep behind enemy lines. Only a few are in service, and due to their somewhat specialized nature they are rarely used.

In case you don't get the backstory, the Tl;DR version is that I stole everything forward of the troop bay from Dr. X. Happy now?

Armament consists of two Gauss cannons and two miniguns. The troop bay detaches but it's kind of a pain to put back in place.

Two immense plasma turbines make the Hr-36 quite possibly the fastest atmospheric vehicle in the Brikwars galaxy. It is space-capable, but fairly slow out of atmosphere.

This is new, and it's gone through two redesigns since I built it back in September. I'm only really satisfied with it now.The T.L.A. were worried by the prevalence of light, agile fighters such as the Czech MiG and the VoL BroadHead in the Brikwars galaxy; their smaller fleet of heavy fighters would wind up outmaneuvered and overwhelmed if they had to face a light fighter swarm. In response, they designed the Hr-37 as a cheap, lightweight interceptor. The Hr-37 is almost totally focused on air combat, equipped solely with gauss cannon (although these make it effective as an anti-armor strafer as well) and a targeting laser to call in missile fire from other units. Its simplicity allows pilots to spend more time learning air combat techniques rather than memorizing the ship's systems.

It doesn't really have that much in common with Dr.X's original design, save for the canopy. But I didn't want to think up another acronym.

The wing hardpoints can be fitted with missiles, but pilots almost universally prefer the gauss guns, citing a need for 'moar dakka'. Really, they're settling into the new galaxy quite well.

This is a major redesign of my old lifting-body fighter.The T.L.A. F.L.A.S.H. (FLeet Assault SHip) is the main interceptor used by the T.L.A. Navy. Its lifting-body airframe is aerodynamic enough for atmospheric combat (although the sensors required for space combat mar it somewhat) and stores enough fuel for prolonged deep-space missions. There's no canopy; the pilot is seated safely inside the hull, mostly because there's nowhere else he fits. The F.L.A.S.H. is armed with two missile pylons (unoccupied so far) and two heavy gauss cannons.

Those ARC-170 window pieces are where the pilot sits.

Engine array. The FLASH is not quite as fast as the Hr-36 in atmosphere, but otherwise lives up to its name. Due to Maverick's compulsive need for speed, this is his favorite aircraft.

The T.L.A. Strike Transport and Universal Destruction Ship (S.T.U.D.S.) is the largest aircraft used in combat by the T.L.A. Only a few have been produced so far, and their immense firepower has made them one of the most popular military units among T.L.A. troops. Its armament includes two plasma cannons and a tri-barreled Gauss gun. The wingtip engines were stolen from MicVash.

This thing is actually due for a redesign fairly soon, likely over the next spring break. I'm not quite happy with it yet.

Last edited by Theblackdog on Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:05 pm, edited 9 times in total.

Sorry. I haven't really been following up on your newest faction's background, because most of its development occurred while I was on hiatus, either at college or working at my summer internship. These guys have been around for a long time, and take it from me, this backstory has been in my head for a long time -- I know that it's a lame excuse, but I didn't copy it from you. Their anti-immortal alignment, and their extragalactic origin and the circumstances of their migration, will be important in an upcoming storyline I'm going to develop with solo battles over the next couple weeks and a forum battle in November.

If you've looked through the unit fluff, you might notice that I'm careful to credit the people I copy from. If I'd copied from you, rather than developing a similar storyline on my own, you would have been mentioned.

Colette wrote:A civilization that used to exist as a multiple-galaxy-spanning dominion with a more peaceful culture, that had to escape an extra-galactic invasion using inter-galactic colony ships to reach the brik-galaxy, that right now has a severe population problem and such a small infantry, and also relies on vehicles for their military strength? Which formerly also had a dysfunctional democracy filled with disagreement?

I seem to remember this was the backstory of the starship civilizations back in the Lego Wars days, back before BrikWars even had its first edition. Which is not to say anybody stole from anybody, but that this is a very standard sci-fi backstory.

While jump troops act as a mobile strike force, T.L.A. Assault Commandos are used to capture and hold fixed positions with the help of heavy weaponry. They are usually dropped from S.T.U.D.S. transports, both because these VTOL transports can pick them up again if necessary and because their oversized guns wouldn't fit in a smaller craft.

Two flame troops provide close-in defense.

A grenadier. His rapid-fire grenade launcher is lethal against enemy infantry, and can fire over cover provided that he has someone to spot for him. The design of this gun came from one Kyle Vrieze back on mocpages.

The Officer is armed with an autocannon and carries a radio link to communicate with his squad. He's also got a handheld targeting laser strapped to his back, primarily to mark targets for the grenadier. Thanks to Aoffan for the gun design, it's one of the coolest I've ever seen.

The Sniper is armed with a massive rail rifle designed to eliminate individual minifigs (or multiple minifigs, if they're lined up nicely) from extreme range. Rail rifle projectiles are about the same weight as a large-caliber rifle bullet, a bit thinner and longer, but hit with the kinetic energy of a semi truck at freeway speeds. When T.L.A. snipers say "Boom, headshot", they mean it.